Can’t imagine for the life of me how those folks do this blog thing everyday. Not enough hours in 24 for me, but I’m trying and I’ll attempt to roll with it on a more frequent hook up.

Yea, so I guess some indie number did a reissue on my “He Who Rides The Tiger” album. Long ago boy, not really thought about in some time and pretty much wiped it from the mental slate, so calculations and memories of how it sprung to life have left the building.

In cases such as these reacquaintence is best and so I’ve taken a listen and hovered around lyrical content and eyeballed artwork. Hmmm! Not sure about the dodgy covershot. Photo acceptable but the obligatory hot model lurking seductively in the background gives cause to assume this is very eighties. I’m regrettably thinking Robert Palmer and Bryan Ferry here, which I am not and was most certainly never on like footing with musically. No offense to their own images just that, well the playboy lothario deal was never something I cultivated so perpetrating it on my own work was something of a misnomer not to mention false advertising.

The music? Melodically lacking for the most part, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the bulky lyrical content might have been ambushed by anything to adventurous. I imagine I was patenting a blue print for my life and times at the time and while some of the material is a little over wrought and heavy handed not to mention substandard there is enough good to make me relatively relieved.

Word wise it’s got its moments and if I had to pick a stand out I guess it would have to be “Approaching Armageddon” which by all accounts seems to be in agreement with the consensus. The flush jobs would have to be “Lovers Cross” and “Love The Barren Desert” which I could well do without and if erasure from the cannon were possible they’d be a rub out. As for the rest, yea! I’m happy enough.

I don’t recall much about the recording. I imagine it was enjoyable enough and the players in general were a goodly and talented bunch. Many of them progressed to loftier heights, some not so, but where they have all flown and landed I hope it has been with a light cargo and a satisfied mind.

It was definitely another time and place and as is with the chalk line of my life the clean rains come and wash away the fading trails I’ve left behind. I’m not reflective for the most part at least not for such as these things and discussions of “the good old days” generally make my skin crawl. Forward movement is a component I rigorously embrace and any chance encounter that highjacks me into a nostalgic trip down memory lane is a nightmare equally as rabid as one that finds me waking in the morning between Ann Coulter and Janine Garofalo. If there was ever a reason not to look left or right this could be it!

Sad about Willy Deville, but what is sadder is that he warranted a mere couple of inches in the obits. He had a hard and scarred life courting the needle and traveling the mainline but he released some great cuts and penned some cool tunes. He deserves better. Check out “Miracle” (if you can find it) and “Crow Jane Alley” one of his last and a beauty.

If you want a great read about how the press can totally screw up a banner headline and paint a tissue of lies check out Dave Cullen’s remarkable “Columbine”

Never has an American tragedy been so misunderstood, misquoted and portraits painted so hideously incorrectly. I thought I new something about this until I read this book and realized I knew nothing. Exemplary reporting that makes you want to beg all Goths and Marylyn Manson for forgiveness.

Listen too “fondo” by Vieux Farka Toure. A chip of the old block if ever there was. And finally if you like Billie Holiday don’t get hung up on just “Lady Sings The Blues” “Songs for Distingue Lovers” and “Lady In Satin”. Great as they are check back on the riffs she got into with Tommy Dorsey. Relaxed, cool and swinging like a motivated monkey.

Keep on the right side of the road. Adios.
Back